Thomas J. Tarsney (1846 – 1902?) was a Populist politician and author in Colorado in the late 19th century. Early life and political career Tarsney was born in Ohio, but later moved to Pueblo, Colorado. With Governor Davis H. Waite and Lieutenant Governor Francis Carney, Tarsney was one of the organizers of the Populist party in Colorado. He was a strong advocate for the coinage of both gold and silver, and was outraged by what he perceived as the distortions practiced by advocates of the gold standard in the election of 1876. Tarsney was elected adjutant general of the Colorado state militia in April 1893 for a two-year term. Cripple Creek Strike During the Cripple Creek miners' strike of 1894, Governor Waite, a 67-year-old Populist, dispatched 300 troops to the Cripple Creek area on March 18 under the command of Adjutant General Tarsney after the local sheriff had declared that the region was in chaos. Tarsney found the area tense but quiet. John Calderwood, president of the local affiliate of the Western Federation of Miners, assured Tarsney that union members would peacefully surrender for arrest, if that is what Tarsney wished. In his report to the governor, Tarsney described the situation: Early in the day General Brooks and myself were asked to a conference with the officials of the county and the businessmen of Cripple Creek, whom we met to the number of perhaps 30 at the Palace Hotel. They represented to us the terrible conditions existing in the city and the adjacent mining camps, representing that there was no safety for life or property in either, and declaring that the civil authorities were unable to preserve the peace; that the roads and trails were guarded by armed men, openly defying the officers of the law. The sheriff of the county, Mr. M.F. Bowers, was present, and declared his inability to serve the processes of the courts. A careful inquiry into these affairs by General Brooks and myself disclosed the fact that no person in the county had been charged with the commission of any offence in regard to the existing labor troubles, and that no warrant or other process of court had ever issued, and that neither the sheriff nor his deputies had been resisted in any way, nor had Sheriff Bowers ever been, nor had he ever sought to go to Bull Hill, where it was alleged the